Sayulita v2.0 - Apr 26 - May 03
Right, so in this visit of Sayulita, I’m quite confident that I won’t do a whole lot that is literally note worthy so I think, like last time, I will place everything I’ve done in Sayulita into one section.
On Tuesday I spent a lot time doing nothing and hanging out with people. I went for a quick surf and managed to catch my first real, legitimate, blue water wave. I rode it into the beach with the biggest smile on my face. When 6:30pm came along I got to start my first shift working at Lush, the hostel that I’m staying at. My first shift was bartending! Overall I think it went pretty well. It felt a lot like a video game because I started out with only a few comstumers who were just chatting and relaxing and as the night went on more people came in. Every now and then, as though it was like the boss of the level, a wave of three or four girls from the hostel would show up and want something that wasn’t beer or tequila which meant I had to do some real thinking. But yeah, it was pretty fun. I can’t see myself wanting to be a bartender in any kind of bar that is busy, especially not in a club. Kill me now. I then went out for a quick stint.
On Wednesday I tried to tackle some of my chores from my list of things that need to be done before I leave. I like that I don’t have a six or eight hour work day because I can spread out the work the way I want. After a few hours I realized that I started work too late in the day to be working at a comfortable temperature. I decided to do some of the “indoor” work instead. I use quotes there because most of the hostel is open air so I’m not avoiding much heat, just the sun for the most part. Later in the day I went surfing. I am getting better. The tough part now is properly timing when to stand up and also standing up in a more balanced position.
OK, so I didn’t bother even thinking about the blog after that but the jist of it is that I did a lot of chores in some hot weather, I drank a lot of beer and tequila, and I had my final day of work on Tuesday where I was the bar tender again. That night was quite cool because, at one point, there were a wave of Mexican dudes that cam up to the bar and I got them drinks in Spanish. And that’s kind of cool. To be able to say you were bartending in a Mexican beach town with a ton of friends and spoke Spanish for a good portion of the time. It felt like a nice cap on the Mexican portion of the trip.
Uh Oh, Not Again - May 04 - May 05
During the morning of my leaving day, I went to get some waves, failed hard, walked around to find people I know to say goodbye, ate a huge breakfast, and said goodbye to everyone that was still in the hostel at departure time. I left with a girl named Helena who was off to Oaxaca, and I grabbed my second party shirt from the same spot on the fence near the as the last one I bought. I can’t wait to sport that in some under 20 or maybe 10 degree Canadian weather. Should be good.
The bus didn’t stop at the airport properly which is just swell even though I made it clear we wanted that stop. Cheers, douche. As we checked in, instead of a happy smiling Jeff like Helena expected, I came back with a look that said “Guess what?” Here’s what. Someone got ahold of my credit card information and maxed out my card which meant I couldn’t pay for my carry on luggage. Soon, after too many attempts, my card was in a declined state. I explained the situtation and gladly they let me board. Helena and I spent some time deliberating what I should do and then she had to go for her flight. I, however, got to stew for an extra hour to think about how to fix this shit. I couldn’t find a phone to call and cancel the card so I figured I may as well just wait until one of my layovers to try and fix it.
In San Francisco I tried to buy some food with the remaining balance on my card but it was declined, something I forgot about. I was getting hungry but I powered on to Toronto after the five hour layover. In Toronto I didn’t get much time between flights so I kept it going to St. John’s, NL. Once I landed I got a phone and made the call. The card is cancelled and decommissioned. This means that I have literally no way of getting any money whatsoever. I explained the same thing to the woman behind the counter and she kindly gave me two $5 gift cards for any store in the airport. So, for my first meal back in Canada I had two bagels, a donut, and a cup of water straight from Tim Horton’s. Oh Canada. Now I’m sitting in the airport lobby, waiting for a message from one of the couchsurfing.com hosts that I messaged in the morning, hoping that he can drive me from the airport, shelter me, and feed me something before I die.
I think my best course of action today will be to pray for the best and expect the worst. I think I could put up with being in the airport for a night. Grabbing sleep in the fake pirate ship near the entrance. I did buy a blanket in Sayulita after all. Tomorrow I’ll probably go to TD bank and switch my banking situation over, which will be fun because I think my mom’s name is still on my account which means I, a 26-year-old man, will need my parents’ permission to handle my own money. I’ll also have to tell her what happened, which is something I wanted to avoid anyway. Should be fun!
Luckily, Eoin (pronounced Owen) was able to come and pick me up from the airport! Such luck. I met his roommate Michael and went straight to sleep. Thank god for couchsurfing. Thanks to my friends who were with me on Facebook helping me find other people to stay with.
Clever Banking - May 06
I woke up quite late, though I didn’t realize at the time that I was jet lagged. I hung out with Eoin for a bit in the morning and then walked down to the TD bank to pull off my clever banking decision of opening another account and etransferring funds from Vancity to TD in order to get a working debit card. I opened the account, went to the cafe and hopped on my phone to make the transfer, after it went through I bought some lunch with success, though I was joking with the people behind the counter that I could wash dishes if it didn’t work. They seemed open to the idea.
Next on the list was getting a working SIM card for my phone so I grabbed the bus to Avalon mall and got that sorted. I even managed to find the long-awaited insoles that I lost in Guanajuato. Score! After all that I didn’t have a plan for the rest of the day so I decided to see a movie. I watched the new Avengers movie, the one where they all fight eachother. It was a movie. I got back on the bus and immediately realized that my phone was on the fritz, worse than ever. I couldn’t get the screen to turn on, but the music I had planning earlier could be controlled by my headphones. Sweet. When I got back to the house I tore apart the phone and did some Googling. It turns out the problem can be fairly common, especially when I think of how many times I’ve dropped the phone. I hour or so later and I had it fixed by readjusting the ribbon cable connection for the screen. With that accomplished feeling I hit the hay.
Back to Travel - May 07
Another late wake up and I had a bit of a chat with Eoin. We went together to a store he needed to go to in order to pick up some things for his mom’s Mother’s Day cake and then he gave me a ride to the start of the trail that goes up to Signal Hill. The walk up the hill was a bit tougher than I expected but still not bad. During the hike, I found that, again, my phone was wigging out. God damnit why is everything becoming so difficult? Same issue which meant that, for all intents and purposes, I had no phone. Here’s the last photo I took that uploaded to Google Photos.
After a bit of a rest and a gander I went further north to Quidi Vidi Village. Isn’t that just a fun name? I went into Mallard Cottage and got a sweet bagel for lunch, it was good. I almost got something with lobster but thought that I should save that for a proper meal with some people that I might from town. After lunch, I walked half of Quidi Vidi Lake, the most of which I accompanied a nice older gentleman. We talked about travel, the Fort MacMurray fires, photography, and met up with some of his friends along the way. He gave me directions for getting back downtown and we parted ways.
I walked down Gower street for a bit and admired the colourful buildings. It is a funny transition coming from Mexico to St. John’s because the people here are quite nice and inviting and there are colourful houses, something that I’ve noticed all across Mexico. It’s just cold and the people are white. I tried to get back into the house but Eoin hadn’t yet cut the key. So I was still on my own with a phone I needed to fix and I left my screwdriver in the house. I then began my search for a screwdriver small enough to take out phone sized screws. I went into about a total of 12 shops, taking advice on where to try next until I arrived at the hardware store, Templeton’s. I finally found what I needed, semi-fixed the issue enough to get Eoin’s number out of my phone and realize that he had returned home. At the house I did some searching for a replacement phone, called for my emergency Visa card and then puttered around the house with Michael and his friends until I went out to George Street!
George Street is cool, but small. I had a list of places to visit, but the list almost made up every bar/pub/club on the strip. Either way, it was time to get screeched in. Getting screeched in is basically the Newfies’ way of creating honorary Newfies by making them say some Newfie words, kiss a cod, and drink a shot of some pretty harsh screech. It was an experience that I recommend. I did it at Christian’s if you want to know the place to go. I hear Trapper John’s does a pretty good one too.
The rest of the night was spent drinking pints of real beer, no more Corona or Pacifico for this Canadian.